The Queen and The Viper

by Adam C Mitchell

  Peggy not that she was overly concerned, but she clocked that the article included columns of lurid embellishment, but instead of give them a second thought turned to look at her lover instead. Her great eyes gleaming, her plans had worked out perfectly, even if she did say so herself. This little trip out as the Queen Of Spades, had been by far her most successful and far-reaching to date, not to mention a master stroke against the state machine which had metaphorically pulled the trigger on her fathers murder all them years ago. It all seemed to incredible to be true, she leaned towards Jack Malone, her lovely bosom softly touching his arm. Her fragrance rich and soothing, filling Jack’s mind.

  “Oh Jack! It’s wonderful!” she cried softly “almost to good to be true. I can’t believe you did it, where everyone else fell short. You really are the best this cities got.” she leaned over a touch more, and kissed him softly upon the cheek. He just grinned as he copped a feel of her pert breast.

  “It’s great, no doubt there doll!” he told her enthusiastically “but I’d never have pulled any of this off without help. In fact if it hadn’t been for a caped dame, I wouldn't be here. I’d have bought the farm no doubt!”

  Peggy looked at Jack intently “a caped dame? There's no mention of her in the paper?” she replied softly “I don’t understand honey.” Jack’s eyes focused on her angelic face, as his grin faded “after I left here I was kidnapped from my apartment and held prisoner by the House, facing torture or worse. A fearless woman The Queen of Spades, seized the D.A you know Dunham and rescued me from the House’s hideout, and then switched me and the D.A so I could get away. So I guess that explains his injuries mentioned in the paper. The Queen of Spades likewise turned over the damning documents that she had relived from Dunham. It was those documents that were the base of the exposé you’ve just read about. Yet despite her really doing all the work she insisted I take full credit and leave her name out of it. Don’t you agree I owe that caped dame a hell of a lot, Peggy?”

  She smiled innocently “why yes of course. Jack but I thought The Queen Of Spades was wanted, by well us. You know the police? How could you let her go, scot-free like that?”

  Jack’s eyes softened “Peggy” he said “I recognized The Queen Of Spades, as in I know the woman behind the mask!” the little adventuress’s body went rigid. With great effort, she fought down the panic that had suddenly welled up within her slender frame. She raised guileless eyes to meet his probing glance. “so what?” she managed precisely, for a moment his eyes held her, in an effort to read her calm gaze.

  “Don’t you see I couldn't turn her in honey” he murmured “not after she pulled my ass out of the fire and cut off the bad limb that was crippling the city! Besides….” he went on grinning again “the credit she sent my way has gained me a promotion of sorts and a more than healthy pay bump! So if top brass want me to reveal the identity of The Queen Of Spades, there got a bloody long wait on their hands”

  Jack Malone smiled understandingly, and poured a solid three fingers from a table-side decanter, pouring one for both of them. Then sat back next to her again glasses in hand. Toasting high their glasses, “to the future” she toasted softly “of The Queen Of Spades” added Jack with meaning without looking at her. Then he turned, Peggy Ellen laughed throatily as she went into his open arms. “Thank you for saving me” Jack whispered in her ear “I love you, marry me?”

  “Oh Jack, yes!” Peggy replied as tears welled up in her eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I tell you I’m on the level beautiful. I am his wife, for my sins” the girl spat out the word wife like it was a foul taste in her mouth, “I know what he told you. It’s the same line he’s told all the others on that damn circle's hit list. I’m sure you know what the ‘circle’ is. Either way frankly it doesn’t really matter.”

  “you’re just trying to drive me away from him!” Morgan from his vantage deduced they were in the kitchen of the apartment. As from what he could tell one of them kept moving about – probably Jenna he guessed and she seemed to have a limp. He didn’t notice it before in the shop, but no on the wooden floorboards it was there. Was that why her man seemed to like those of a physically not all there manner he thought to himself. “I’m trying to save your life you stupid cow. You don’t know Steven he’s a monster. Trust me once that damn House sends him the names of whoever they want sorted mainly the dames of their competitors. He finds them at the silly little agency and then he drains them dry before well – or have you already given him your money along with your heart your daft wench?”

  “No” Louise answered. “tomorrow after he gets the license, we will take over the business.”

  “Trust me doll - tomorrow you will be dead – if you do not let me help you get away.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t hate me Mrs Flynn. But I swear – I had no clue he was married!”

  “frankly I couldn't care less about you, one way or another. The reason I’m praying to God for you to get away and fast, is that I don’t want my man caught. Despite his flaws and trust me he has many, like I said despite that and well everything else he’s still my man and I love him.”

  “”I know what well. I know what would happen to him, if the police got to him...well…I’m not stupid I know what he’s been doing these past few months, playing yet another one of the Houses stupid games. It’s obvious he didn’t earn all the green he’s been splashing all over the city. Nevertheless —” she paused “nevertheless like I said I love him!”

  The slow brewing tension between the two women was broken by the shrill bell of the phone. Jenna stalked off to answer it, Morgan waited until he heard her answering, then tried the door. It was locked. Damn he thought. “Louise” he whispered as loudly as he dared “Louise” the police woman didn’t hear him. Mrs Flynn was storming back towards Louise.

  “you talk to me about lying bitch!” she cried out with venom “you...high heeled no good trickster!” Mrs Flynn’s voice rose in both pitch and anger “that was Steven on the phone.”

  “so he’s coming back then?”

  “sooner than you’d like, my dear deaf lady!”

  “wait——”

  “you’re no innocent doll Miss Handley. I know who you are. Your the law, a cop in a skirt- and your well here to trap my man. All this time I felt sorry for you, thinking you were the fly caught in his web.” Louise screamed, once as Morgan heard a thud and kicked the door hard in vain.

  “Louise get the door open, quick.” Ben shouted from the corridor, but Louise couldn't get it open. Forcing Ben to think fast, taking out his ‘borrowed’ gun. Aiming like a pro an inch to the left of the door jamb where the lock meets the frame. But before he could squeeze off a shot he felt something. Something like the end of a pipe or tyre iron get jabbed painfully into the small of his back. A sauvé yet greasy sounding voice murmured back: “use my key! It’ll be easier!”

  The detective held his pose, as a threatening had came around his left side to relive him of his fire arm. “Come on Jenna, open up you got a gentleman caller!” the apartment door swung wide open. The girl inside stared toward her man, white faced “Steven, I didn’t know you were out there- but I head him trying to get in mind.” she said, as Ben clocked that she had a heavy cast iron poker by her side.

  “I came up when he was yelling, and playing the would be hero.”with the pipe in his hand he prodded Ben Morgan forward, then to show he meant business rammed the revolver’s snout squarely between the detective’s shoulder blades “move it Mr. Law”

  Laura was sprawled out over the floor beside her the refrigerator. Her hat lay on the floor its wide brim crushed by the fall. The police woman's head rested on a brown hessian sack, with her thick brown locks of hair up over her forehead.

  “You bump Jen, baby?”

  “Nah, She’s only snoozing, knocked her out clean” came the female attackers reply “but when I found out this was Mrs. Law I could have killed her.”

  “Were in enough hot wat
er, with the dead cop not to mention what's in the papers. The House is up the river, its done and that’s means we are too. So a dead cop would hang us both for sure. Did you search the broad darlin’”

  Jenna kicked Parish and drove her heel into her stomach “she’s not packing. What are we going to do...with them honey?”

  Steven snarled at his wife “I’ll take care of them.” he dug out a roll of heavy twine from the shop below, from a nearby drawer “Oi, law sit down in the chair, grab the back with your hands. You hear me”

  “Hell, your not going to tie us up are you come on at least be original” Ben mocked, hoping an angered crook, would allow a mistake to be made and an opening to end him.

  “You think I want you sniffing around after us. I don’t think so, you——”

  Morgan suddenly saw a small bulge in the lining of the garish crumpled hat on the floor. He had no clue and no way of knowing or finding out what he hoped it maybe, either at this point— but it might be worth a gamble he thought as he tried in vain to put together an on the fly plan of action. “listen if you don’t want a dead cop on your heels, call her a doctor for Christ-sakes!”

  “why?” hissed Jenna “she’ll snap out of it eventually.”

  “damn it you Irish bitch my partners dying” bellowed a now angry Ben Morgan, seeing her like that his Laura on the floor made him want to rip the hissing bitch in two, for being so black. He moved deliberately and with intent, slowly towards his partner, never once leaving Stevens eye. Then Dropped down onto one knee beside her. The weapon in Steven’s hand twisted and stalked the detective’s every move “cop, listen now be wise leave her alone.” Morgan rested his weight on one hand close to the hat brim. The other he put on Parish’s forehead “she’s an ice cube” he shouted laying it on thick “God dammit—if you don’t get her to a doctor soon she’ll——” as he spoke his hand touched gun metal under the lose lining of the hat, it was then Steven noticed something was up.

  “keep away from that hat, detective” Ben just fired the gun on sheer angered instinct, the stubby police woman's .32 shouting out twice in anger from under the lining here Laura had cleverly hidden it. It was a risky shot, but it was a risk he had to play for Laura and his own sake. The pair of brass slugs hit Steven Flynn about an inch above and below his belt buckle. Doubling him over instantly, but not before a return volley was sent Morgan’s way hitting him hard in the hip, instead of his head. Ben felt like molten metal had been spill all along his thigh. He lifted the .32- hat and all- and emptied the last three brass rounds from the six bore barrel, and then beyond until the empty barrel clicked around empty. The first bullet missed everything. The second took his head off his shoulders and well after that the third wasn’t needed and just happily buried itself in his chest.

  Jenna sprang up and out like a coiled spring, and caught her man as his dead body fell. Her arms instinctively wrapping themselves around him for protection. Her once angered nature cut down to a mere sorrowful whimper. Laura struggled to sit up and get her bearings “you and the U.S. army pass through here or something Ben?” she mumbled. Her partner letting her put her full weight on him, so she could get to her feet. “you know me, no half measures doll, Laura listen I feel a total chump to lose you there in the subway, and...”

  “just the subway…?” Laura asked, but waved away Ben’s response before he could speak, all this made her realise they should never have drifted apart, and if they got through this she would fix that, mistake from their past. She pressed her hand on the top of her head, checking for blood, thankful there was only a trickle. “Ashford...I mean, heck the idiot with a thousand names- gone?”

  “Thanks to your hiding hat. That .32 in the Handley dames oh so horrid bonnet saw to that.”

  Jenna whined like a dying animal “I know your both happy” she spat, “and we all know he’s on his way downstairs. Honestly though I know I should be too we were a team him and me, after all he went off the reservation and crossed the line way to many times. But I’m not happy I tell you, I love- loved him you hear, you pair of tin shielded killers!”

  Laura with a slight assist from Ben, limped over to Jenna “it was a good chess game, while it lasted Mrs Flynn. But just like everything in this dolled up town, nothing lasts forever. Oh and you can take off the disguise!” she suddenly stopped her wailing like a trap snapping shut, looking in the female detective’s eyes relayed what her next words were to be “so detecitve what you saying that I knew about Steven’s murders? Well whats the point in lying now yes I knew. But only when it was too late to stop him anyway!”

  “cut the tin. I’ll say you knew” Ben said as he picked up the pistol, “but Mrs Flynn the only person who didn’t know- for sure – was Steven!” Jenna just sat there stunned.

  “What nothing Mrs Flynn. All right play it that way” Laura Parish chimed in backing up her partner “but from what my partner told me, when the patrol man from the Johnson crime scene identifies you as the woman who ran away. But not before telling him about the fight upstairs, the one ‘over’ your room of course. Tell me doll Why'd you play cat to his mouse and chase him over there anyway? I’m guessing you’d read the paper, you know that story about dead women and the bones. Well that’d be my guess anyway as you must have been hiding in the room Steven used as Ashford Bell. So he could get his hooks into another dame and I’m putting the jigsaw together here and seeing, that you were packing up the clothes he had there to try and cover it all up. Or maybe just having at him was enough letting him no someone was onto him, so he wouldn’t have known who punched his card especially with the whole bones under the pier issue. But then who should ride up on his crippled charger but Alexander-Fairburn Johnson. When he heard about the dames I guess he figured as they went through his business, and thought ‘Hell where’s my cut’ so the silly fool stumbled right into the hornets nest didn’t he. Poor fool”

  Jenna laid her cheek against the lifeless one in her lap. “you don’t believe that tall tale do you? Know one could believe it, what a total yarn.” With Ben watching over Jenna, Laura Parish made her way to what passed as a kitchenette, and to the sink, hoping to use the cold water to wash out any blood out from her hair, even a little. That is until she saw a bundle hidden behind the sinks pipes. Pulling and unwrapping it from behind its pipes she smiled dryly. It was a small camp hatchet

  “well, well could this little Bobby Brown boy-scout meat axe, be the deadly little demon. Well it must be as it looks like somebodies been scouring it with good old steel wool. Now why would anyone do that unless...”

  “The head of that little bugger would fit the god damn gash in my fedora just dandy, partner.” Ben Morgan answered “But it killed no one that day, just knocked Johnson out cold. He was plugged after my lights were put out. You shot him Mrs Flynn- so I’d either get blamed for plugging him, or think at the very least that pudgy fellow was the mastermind for the contentment murders.”

  “yes I was there” Jenna said stroking the corpses forehead “I did hear the fight, I told the truth to the beat cop. You were the one who shot this fat man. Not me!”

  “no cop anywhere, let alone in Liberty shoots a Joe whose lying down lady. The blood stain on Johnson’s vest was round, with the bullet dead centre, doll. If he’d died on his feet- the way it would’ve been if it had in a fight – the nasty little blood stain would be tear shaped- with the point down. So tell me how’d you get out the house? Then rush your husband down to the bathroom on the second floor- have him wait while you kill Johnson without your man knowing it. Then take the time for a quick powder after the patrol man ran up to the third floor?”

  Laura Parish went over to pick up what was left of Mrs Handley’s horrid hat. She picked up the brown paper- market bag as well. “Don’t tell me this dainty girl cut up all them dames on her little lonesome, Ben!”

  “Yair, she probably did it with the hatchet, with that it would be easy enough even for her, Detective” Ben replied.

  “But Why?” The police
-woman looked confused, as she held the bag up to the light. “If Steven got the green from these woman, with his sugared words…?”

  “No doubt, Mrs Flynn couldn't care where her man’s oats went, as long as it paid at leasts that’s how I read it.” Jenna kissed her dead husbands on the lips “Darling! Listen to the horrid lies there saying about your beloved.”

  “You talk to us about lies Mrs Flynn you must have lied your little behind off. You’d probably promised to get the lovelorn out of his way. After he’d got you, your oh so loved gold.” Ben turned his back to inspect the wound on his hip

  “Maybe” he thought “Maybe you scared them off by that ‘he’s a married- man – I’m his wife’ line. I don’t know. But I’m bang on the money by thinking you thought the easy way to keep the lovelorn dames quiet, was to play chef with the poor ladies arms and legs.”

  “Oh look the bag looks to be the same stuff as the fibres we found on that oiled cloth. Looks as if its the same twine, as it seems to strengthen the base of the bag. Well I guess it would need to be to well carry...them...in.”

  “yeah. Yeah makes sense now. She had to hack them small enough to make the fit for her bag. So she could dispose the well pieces easily enough over several trips to the pier and back, without being noticed.”